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Learner Reviews & Feedback for Fundamentals of Music Theory by The University of Edinburgh

4.5
stars
1,714 ratings

About the Course

This course, revised in 2022, will introduce you to the theory of music, providing you with the skills needed to read and write Western music notation, as well as to understand, analyse, and listen informedly. It will cover material such as pitches and scales, intervals, clefs, rhythm, form, metre and time signatures, phrases and cadences, and basic harmony. This course covers the fundamentals of Western music theory, from the absolute basics to some more advanced concepts. As such, it delivers material for beginners and offers much to experienced musicians alike....

Top reviews

GE

Apr 1, 2021

Very good course which hammers home the essentials.

Good enthusiastic lecturing and importantly on completion progressed onto Coursera Musicianship Specialisation which I have now almost completed

SS

Aug 22, 2017

It was a very nice course. We were able to understand the basics of music theory and how the notations and chords work. Thank you so much to the entire staff of Edinburgh University and Coursera..:-)

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351 - 375 of 548 Reviews for Fundamentals of Music Theory

By JAVIER R A

Jul 31, 2023

Genial!!

By Marta N

Jan 27, 2023

MUY BUENO

By Vicente B

Apr 26, 2022

excellent

By Emmanuel c o

Mar 21, 2018

i love it

By Guillermo Á M C

Oct 26, 2017

¡Gracias!

By Wam R

Jul 3, 2017

Loving it

By Yvonne C

Mar 30, 2017

仔细、认真、全面。

By Sarah G

Feb 24, 2019

Exelent!

By Stella K

Dec 21, 2017

Thank yo

By Антон Ю

Jun 24, 2017

Perfect!

By Pyro

Nov 4, 2021

Amezing

By Maria V C

Sep 19, 2018

amazing

By Nomit N

Jun 14, 2017

superbb

By andres b

Jan 19, 2017

Gracias

By Marlena B

Sep 9, 2016

Super!

By Gabriel A

Apr 10, 2023

great

By Akhil18 V

Jul 28, 2019

good

By Hai y

Jun 8, 2018

TQ

By Gregor M

Jan 5, 2021

What began as a passing interest in improving my scant knowledge of music theory became a full on obsession by the end of this course. I was staying up until 9pm over my Christmas break, taking and re-taking quizzes and studying cadences, secondary dominants and modulation. Who would've known? Certainly not me when I began!

For me, playing music is a hobby. I've never studied it, taken graded exams or anything of that sort. I saw 'fundamentals of music theory', free of charge, and thought it would be a good place to start. A word of advice: this is certainly not for beginner musicians.

My only criticism of the course would be that the end of unit quizzes, and final exam, are a VERY steep climb from the comparatively pedestrian level of instruction (barring the rhythm section, which required a lot of further study to get my head around).

The formula seems to go: crawl (teach concept), baby steps (watch demonstration of concept), Olympic 100-metre sprint (answer university level questions). If you have the time and dedication to put into this course the rewards are plenty. You can take end of unit quizzes as many times as you would like, meaning the challenge just about meets the pace of learning.

I am thoroughly pleased with the time I put into this course, and I am excited to go back to my instruments (saxophone and guitar) armed with a greater understanding of these fundamentals, and indeed more complex concepts, of music theory.

By Alison C

Jul 6, 2020

Most of the course was delivered at a suitable pace, with plenty of examples. The one week where my eyes glazed over was week 3 (I think) which was all about time values of notes, etc. Fortunately, I already read music, and so managed to pass the assessment. Otherwise I think I'd have struggled. Even so, some of the questions really stretched my brain - many of them were NOT normal rhythms!

I felt that one or two of the questions in the final exam were quite complicated - cases where we were to disregard "passing notes" for instance, which was something I felt wasn't really covered in the course, and the one about "phrasing structure" (but that may have been in week 3).

In short, I'm not sure it's the FUNDAMENTALS (which to me means the basics) of music theory, but after well over 40 years of being able to read music, and over 20 singing in choirs, I finally understand the structures and names of chords, and simple progressions, and can work out an accompaniment for a simple tune, which was absolutely what I wanted to achieve. Thank you!

By Răzvan M

Nov 27, 2016

I am absolutely delighted to have had the opportunity to study the fundamentals of music theory from a prestigious university such as The University of Edinburgh for free online. I extend my most sincere gratitude to Coursera and the professors teaching the course for making this possible. The course makes it very easy to build knowledge going from week to week. The assignments are all challenging. In this way this course encourages studying to understand the concepts. I have attended the course as a beginner in music theory, having encountered only some very elementary concepts earlier. I have found all the teachers to be very pleasant and very clear in their explanations. I have given 4 stars to this course because I would have liked to learn more from the professors on some topics which were very briefly mentioned. Some of the courses have external links to Wikipedia instead of a more clear explanation. This are however the exception and not the rule. The majority of the course is well taught and presented.

By Neil S

Nov 14, 2018

I have played rock guitar for years, but have a gap in basic theory. This course was a good choice for me - it starts with real basics such as what pitch and duration are and how they are noted, but moves very quickly to multiple staves, chords, harmonies, cadences and chord progressions.

A couple of the video lectures are very informative and worth watching more than once. The added "home" video made by one of the instructors working through various chord progressions and added later stands out as worth watching more than once.

I would have liked more support for understanding chord progressions, modulation and cadences in the written materials. The examples given are useful, but I didn't feel quite ready for the analysis skills expected of me in the final exam. Still, I learned a lot, and very happy that I took this course. I haven't magically gained ability to sight read, but the extra practice made me feel that it would be in reach if I wanted.

By MA B

Jan 17, 2024

A very interesting course but also very challenging if you have no previous musical knowledge. The videos are generally very clear and easy to follow(love the accent!), but the actual test questions are way more difficult. Also the content is often presented in the wrong order: eg, including inverted chords in test questions before the topic itself is dealt with. The supplementary material that is often mentioned is basically the same content as the videos, but thanks to that, and to the fact that most of the questions in the forum go unanswered, I've discovered lots of other useful web pages. Personally I seem to have run out of time after completing 80% of the course, but hopefully I can re-enroll and with what I've learned so far, complete it successfully this time. I'd definitely recommend the course but be warned, it's a challenge and you'll definitely need other sources of information to help you through it.

By Carolyñea L

Aug 5, 2021

I found the course very challenging, it started off very exciting still challenging but by the 2 week the work became very inundated. I was very grateful for for the ability to extend your deadline datesand having former knowledge & music experience . Be cautious with using your extentions also because then at the end with part 2 of your final, you run the risk of not having someone to grade your final leading you to have to wait for the next group. Keep in mind you have to complete the course in 180 days. This course you must have some knowledge of music and an instrustrament, I disagree that this course is for beginners,especially if you never took music intro. Other wise course was very exhilarating when it came to challenge, well at least for me. The instructors were very clear with their instruction with exception of 1

By Elizabeth T

Apr 10, 2020

Excellent course.

Less than excellent quizzes and final exam. There is an enormous gap between the material presented in the lectures, both in terms of format and information, and the various assessments.

I am an advanced-level amateur pianist and read music easily. I recognized the Beethoven sonata movement which was used for the final exam, and could play it as I considered the exam questions. It would certainly be helpful for students to know which composition they are analyzing. Perhaps the instructors might consider providing the title? (The choice of this sonata for the final exam is a little puzzling, though, since the musical examples in the lectures were mostly simple popular songs.)

Still I want to stress that this is a high-quality course on a complex subject. The professors are knowledgeable and articulate.